


Cosmic Intervention

by Castastrophe



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Somehow Cid and Reno are basically besties, birthday fic, i need to stop loving Cid so much, post advent, red xiii is a bro, sort of canon compliant, yuffie is a cockblock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 00:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castastrophe/pseuds/Castastrophe
Summary: Reno and Cloud have been dancing around this unspoken thing between them for what feels like a lifetime. Every time they get close to tipping over that precipice, the universe interferes. It’s Cloud’s thirtieth, and Reno is determined that it’s going to be the blond’s best birthday yet - with Reno.





	Cosmic Intervention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mousieta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousieta/gifts).



> I can’t believe I’m back on the FFVII fic train. There’s this and a 12,000 or so word in progress fic I’m working on plus another few one shots. I’m terrified to go back to my old stuff on FF net only cause I know it’s so god awful, but I’m even tempted to tidy some of those up. Remake fever is REAL and I am SUFFERING. 
> 
> As always, if I’m going down, I’m taking Mousieta with me. 
> 
> ~ spopococ

For the most part, it’s easy - familiar, even - to be sitting in some poorly lit pokey bar, a drink dangling loosely from his fingertips as he casts an interested gaze in the general direction of whichever figure had ensnared his attention for the evening. For the most part. This time though, there were too many things different from the norm for him to hold his usual demeanour of cool and collected confidence. He’s damn near crawling out of his skin with the effort to keep his cool, and he  _ hates _ it. Since when had someone’s attention - someone’s  _ approval  _ \- carried so much weight for him? 

“You got worms or something?” Cid asks from beside him as a curl of smoke unfurls from the pilot’s mouth, and Reno scoffs, rolling his eyes and forcing himself to sit still. 

“Not all of us can sit on our asses for the better part of a day and rest our weary bones, gramps,” he retorts, taking a long pull from his drink. 

“Not all of us sit around being a pussy and making gooey eyes at our man crushes either, but it seems we’re filling a role each, hey?” Cid quips back, and Reno wants to bite back, he really does, except he’s…  _ distracted _ . 

Barrett has made some sort of smart ass comment, and the gaggle around him has erupted into laughter. And Cloud - Cloud is  _ smiling _ . That big one that only swings by when he’s having a genuinely good time. When the burden of being The Savior Of The World lifts off of his shoulders for a hot minute and he’s just…  _ Cloud _ . 

“Fuck that’s a good look on him. Real good,” Reno murmurs, and Cid snorts, stubbing out his cigarette and clapping Reno on the shoulder as he stands. 

“You’re bein fucken gross,” the pilot grins without malice. “I’m gonna need whisky if you’re gonna start being vocal on your thought trails. Ready for another?” 

Reno glances at the third of a glass in his hand, before downing it and placing it on the table with a grimace. 

“Absolutely. Be right with you pops,” He says airily, before plucking up whatever courage he can somehow muster and commits to walking straight for the blond. Cid rolls his eyes and makes a similar beeline, but for the bar, and Reno barely registers him in the background as he gets close enough to catch a waft of Cloud’s cologne. 

_ Fuck _ . 

Cloud turns to face him then, as Reno sucks in a sharp breath and tries to remember how to not be a starstruck teenage girl. 

“Hey Red,” Cloud greets casually, tipping his glass towards him. “Didn’t think you were coming tonight.”

“Like I’d miss it,” Reno lifts a shoulder in what he hopes comes across as a nonchalant shrug, but probably just makes him look like an anxious tweaker. “Not every day a local legend hits the big three-oh.” 

“Didn’t you hit it a couple of years ago?” Cloud muses, lip twitching into a teasing smile and Reno’s heart stutters in his chest. 

“I’m not just local, yo. Call me Pitbull, cause I’m Mister Worldwide.” 

And there it is again, that full smile that comes when he laughs, and every neuron Reno has is firing off in about three thousand different directions. 

“Idiot,” Cloud says with affection and flicks a glance towards Reno’s hands. “No drink?”

“He does now,” Cid offers gruffly, shoving a new tumbler into the redhead’s fingers and nudging him in the shoulder. “He drained his last one getting the balls to come say hi.” 

Reno’s gonna fucken kill him. 

Cloud, however, offers a slow, knowing smile and raises an eyebrow, before taking a drink from his own glass and holding it out to Reno for cheers. Reno clinks his drink against it and huffs out a nervous laugh, shooting daggers Cid’s way before the traitorous bastard barks out a laugh and goes over to park his arse by Vincent, pulling a fresh pack of cigarettes from his jacket. 

“I don’t bite,” Cloud chuckles, and Reno can only think  _ ‘I really hope you  _ do _ , actually _ ’ as he drains half his glass in one go. “Where’s your partner in crime tonight anyway?” 

“I know people like to joke that Rude and I are married, but I don’t actually keep tabs on him,” Reno smirks. “Married life ain’t my style, y’know?”

“Hard to tie down a hurricane, I’m sure,” Cloud smirks, and drops his voice down an octave. “I’m pretty sure it would be fun to try, though.”

Oh.

_ Oh _ . 

Reno swallows around a suddenly constricted throat, and Cloud laughs, a light and teasing thing, and  _ fuck _ , Reno isn’t even sure if he’s drunk off his ass and imagining what he just heard, or if he’s about to have the best night of his life. 

“You uh…” Reno rasps, “You wanna see how true that rings?” 

Cloud’s gaze turns heated briefly, and Reno has never been more sure of a person’s interest in his life, but before Cloud can utter a word, he’s being jostled by a catastrophically drunk Yuffie who already has an arm slung around the blond as she spills a substantial amount of a very bright purple drink all over Cloud’s shoes. 

“Oi, old man,” she drawls, a wide grin across her features. “Happy birthday.”

Cloud snorts and slings an arm around her. 

“You are a  _ mess _ ,” he murmurs, “but thank you.”

“ _ You’re  _ a mess,” the princess jabs a finger into his chest. “Play darts with me. I play better when I’m tanked, I swear it. And Tuetsi’s got a 500 Gil wager that.. that I’ll…” Reno raises a brow as she seems to think her words over and come up empty handed, before she’s shrugging and sloshing more of her drink about. “He’s got a wager about... something. Clooooud. Cloud, c’mon.”

She leans into him, seemingly struggling to keep herself upright, and Cloud shakes his head. 

“Nuh uh. You’re going to sit down for a bit and slam down some water. You try throwing anything and someone’s losing an eye,” the blond clicks his tongue and offers an apologetic look Reno’s way as he begins steering Yuffie towards one of the booths at the back of the bar, the woman whining out protests the whole way. 

Reno bites back a sigh as he watches them go, before Tifa materialises beside him with a top up for his glass. 

“You’re too good to me,” he murmurs, and she laughs. 

“I really thought you had him that time,” she muses, and he can’t help screwing his face up a little with the shared sentiment. “Oh stop that, it’s not the end of the night just yet. You two are ridiculous. It’s a matter of when, not if.”

He pats the small of her back and places a kiss to her temple, before pressing the glass back into her hand. 

“As much as I love your never ending attempts at silver linings, Teef, it ain’t helping.” 

She rolled her eyes at him, not the first one to do so tonight and probably not the last, before patting his cheek and continuing on a glass collection run. Reno needed a clear head and about half a dozen of those death sticks Cid had in his breast pocket, so he wound his way through the throng of locals and Cloud enthusiasts until he was pressing himself into the bench beside Cid and reaching into his jacket. 

“Oi!” The pilot swat away what he probably assumed was wandering hands, but you don’t become a Turk without having base level pickpocket skills, so Reno had a cigarette between his lips and lit it before Cid could muster up his first cuss. Vincent seems to take this as his queue to make himself scarce, with a polite nod Reno’s way and a swish of cape. 

“Remember the days back when you weren’t a giant pain in my ass?” The pilot grouches, and Reno grinned, all teeth. 

“No.”

“Hmph. Me neither, actually,” Cid tipped some of his ash into the tray before him. “So who’s cockblocked you this time?”

“ _ Yuffie _ !” Reno throws his hands up in a brief outward expression of his never ending frustration and perpetual case of blue balls. “Sloshed off her  _ ass _ . Who let her get her hands on the cocktails?”

“Nobody  _ lets _ her, she takes as she pleases,” a voice chimes in from Cid’s other side and Reno damn near jumps out of his skin as Nanaki lifts his head up from where he’d been resting it on the bench seat. 

“We need to get you a fucken bell, yo,” the redhead remarks, pulling a long drag from his cigarette as Nanaki’s tail twitches in apparent annoyance, his snout wrinkling in distaste.

“Perhaps we can find you a spine whilst we’re at it,” the Cosmonian replies tersely, and Cid splutters into his drink before howling with laughter. 

It was Reno’s turn to wrinkle his nose. 

“Look, I got plenty of backbone, okay? The universe just keeps telling me this shit ain’t meant to happen,” Reno shrugs. Something heavy settles in his stomach as he stubs out his cigarette and pilfers another from Cid. “I assume it’s karma catching up with me.”

There’s a brief and heavy silence, all three of them aware - at varying levels - of what karma Reno may very well have brought upon himself for his… misdeeds. Nanaki shakes his head, determined, and sits up straighter in his seat. 

“You’ve paid your dues. Tenfold.”

Reno shifts uncomfortably, trying to drown out his uneasiness with nicotine as he casts a lazy gaze around the bar. 

“Let’s just drop it. There’s a half dozen other people here I could take home tonight anyway, y’know?” He smirks, catching the interested gaze of a pretty young brunette eyeing him from over the rim of her glass. It doesn’t stop the punch of odd guilt washing over him at paying her a little attention, however. 

“Certainly. If that was what you wanted to do, I’m sure you could,” Nanaki nods sagely. “But it is not. Because it would be one night and it would not be Cloud.”

Reno swallows thickly, because fuck, is he really that transparent? 

His interest in boning Cloud is something he has always made blatantly obvious to just about everyone within a hundred mile radius. The other stuff, though? The stuff with  _ feelings _ ? That shit was something he’d been working on squashing down under layers of cockiness and cologne for  _ years _ , and now he had a whole ass other species calling him out on his humanity.  _ Accurately _ , nonetheless. 

“Guys like him don’t stick around with guys like me,” Reno forces out, suddenly wishing he hadn’t given Tifa that drink back. “I’d be lucky to get a night, and if that’s all I ever get, I’ll cling to it. Sue me.”

Cid scoffs and slams his drink on the table with a little more force than strictly necessary. 

“Fuck me, Red, suck it up. This self pitying bullshit you fall into on the regular is enough to make the whisky sour,” the pilot scowls, jabbing a cigarette laden finger into the redhead’s chest. “We’ve all fucked up a thing or two in life, but it’s up to  _ you _ whether you suck it up and move on with it, accepting your faults and growing from em, or if you…” Cid pauses, tilts his head towards a cloaked figure at the bar who is cradling his drink within the confines of his gauntlet. “Uh… you don’t. You’re a pain in the ass, but your heart’s in the right place. Make sure it’s meeting his there. Don’t let me catch you talking that nonsense again or I’ll beat your ass so hard you go airborne and then they’ll be calling YOU captain of the skies.”

Reno’s maybe gaping a little. 

In the years of weird companionship bordering on legitimate friendship that he and the pilot have had, Cid’s never really been one to hold back, but fuck if he did  _ not  _ hold back just now. 

Nanaki is smirking like the cat… wolf that got the cream, and Cid is aggressively stubbing out another cigarette, leaving his words hanging in Reno’s stunned silence between them. Reno clears his throat as if to speak, but finds he doesn’t quite have the words after all. 

“That’s certainly food for thought…” Nanaki comments lightly, before sliding from the bench. “If you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to.” Reno watches as the Cosmonian disappears from the table with a flick of an illuminated tail, leaving he and Cid alone once again. 

Reno isn’t often speechless, so he finds he doesn’t know how to broach conversation or even if he should, but the problem solves itself as Cid claps his shoulder and offers a brief squeeze as he stands. 

“I’m taking a piss, grabbing a drink for the road, and then making good on my word to be flown home by midnight,” the pilot offers, pushing past Reno to make a path for the bar. “Don’t be an idiot and I’ll catch you round.”

“Uh, yeah,” Reno offers dumbly in response. “Catch you round.”

Cid’s barely gone a minute before someone  _ else _ is sliding into his spot and Reno’s just about at his limit for sassy friends giving him grief, so he turns to give the newcomer the what’s for, before his half baked smartass remark dies on his tongue. 

“There’s not much sadder than someone sitting alone at a bar,” Cloud smiles that cheeky little grin that always, without fail, manages to worm its way under Reno’s skin and settle there. “Except maybe someone sitting alone at a bar without a drink.”

With that, Cloud slides a bottle of beer across the space between them - the brand of pale ale that Reno secretly likes but makes it a habit to not let Rude see him drinking - and leans against the table to patiently wait for Reno’s response. The redhead laughs, offers a cheers and takes a long sip. His mind is reeling, and to have Cloud come and seek  _ him _ out? He wasn’t gonna complain. 

“How’s your Wuitaian Prince-mess?” Reno queries, and Cloud huffs a laugh. 

“Nanaki’s walking her home. Or as best as he can with how little coherency she’s clinging to,” Cloud shakes his head. “No idea who let her into the cocktails.”

Reno sends a silent thought of thanks into the universe for Nanaki’s mere existence and plucks at the label of his beer, suddenly oddly nervous. He hasn’t had Cloud’s uninterrupted one on one attention since Reeve’s birthday, and he’d been so sure back then that they were on the precipice of something there was no coming back from. So sure. Then Tifa had slipped on a wet patch on the linoleum behind the bar and slid herself into a few dozen bottles and 6 stitches across her knee. Cloud had been the one to do the patch job and take her to the nearest clinic just to make sure she didn’t have any nerve damage, and Reno had thought then that cosmic interference between them would forever be a constant. 

“Hey,” Cloud’s voice is soft, too soft to pull Reno from his musings on its own, but Cloud has reached out and placed a hand on Reno’s wrist. It’s this that pulls Reno’s attention, before he’s focusing back on Cloud’s concerned gaze. “You seem a bit off tonight. You all good?”

Reno huffs out a laugh and nods, turns his gaze from Cloud’s to focus on the point where the blond’s fingertips are resting against his wrist and thinks ‘fuck it’. 

“Yeah I’m all good. You wanna step outside? Get some fresh air?”

It’s the oldest line in the book, they both know it, and Cloud doesn’t say a word. He just smiles a knowing smile and nods, standing and weaving his way through the slowly thinning throng of well wishers. Reno casts a brief look back at the bar, where Tifa is predictably watching, and she gives him a dorky little thumbs up as he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It was like being chaperoned by his mother, if.. his mother was also his love interest’s ex girlfriend... and okay, maybe that was a bad analogy, sue him. 

The air that hits his face as he walks out of the door is way crisper than he’s expecting, given that Wutai’s temperature was usually halfway to Ifrit’s asshole this time of year, but he isn’t gonna complain, especially when it has Cloud leaning against a wall with his ridiculous arms crossed over his chest and his breath visible in the air. 

“You warm enough?” Reno asks out of mild concern and to give himself something to fill the brief pause where Cloud had looked up and simply smiled as Reno approached. 

“Mako makes sure I don’t  _ feel  _ cold,” the blond explains, “but I still get goosebumps. The prickling is a little uncomfortable is all.”

Reno awkwardly hovers with his hands stuffed into his pocket (cause he thinks personally that his balls might be about ready to drop off) and shifts on his feet. 

“Do you, uh,” he hesitates, breath catching as those baby blues settle right on him. “Do you want my jacket?”

Cloud huffs out a laugh, shakes his head, and briefly turns his gaze. Reno feels a flush of embarrassment, until Cloud’s looking back at him and he’s flushing for a whole other reason. 

“For all the talk of how great you are with your moves,” Cloud teases, “you’re pretty terrible at this.”

Reno swallows down the residual nerves still lodged in his throat and slowly steps forward, so that he’s standing before Cloud and bodily blocking the breeze piercing through the air with its frigidity. 

_ Don’t fuck this up _ , his brain keeps screaming at him, and a part of him keeps persisting,  _ I always do _ but he squashes it firmly down with his lingering hesitations. 

“Only with you, y’know?” He rasps, little more than a breath, and Cloud’s smile grows a little softer, a little more expectant. “You’re different. Always have been.”

“Feel free to stroke my ego a little by telling me how,” Cloud murmurs, as Reno steps closer, lowers his hands onto Cloud’s hips. “It  _ is _ my birthday, you know.”

Reno snorts and rubs slow circles into Cloud’s waist with his thumbs. One maybe sneaks up under his shirt a little and delights in the heated skin it finds there, who knows. 

Reno leans closer to Cloud’s ear, lowering his voice and feeling a thrill of success when he hears Cloud’s breath hitch as he shifts his wandering thumb a little lower and drifts it across Cloud’s belt line. Cloud grasps at Reno’s waist, as if anchoring himself, and the redhead uses every form of mental restraint his Turk training gave him not to melt into the touch and throw his entire plan away for the sake of having Cloud then and there. 

_ Fuck.  _

“All those years ago, enemy lines and all, I thought you were stunning. If I’d made a pass at you then, you wouldn’t have been able to resist,” Reno murmurs, and Cloud scoffs in amusement, before Reno squeezes him lightly. He leans closer, presses his nose against Cloud’s neck and lets his lips brush the blond’s skin as he continues, feeling the hard swallow Cloud makes in response. “Laugh all you like hotshot, I guarantee you wouldn’t have. I’d have had you and probably moved on, cause that was the style I was living by.”

Reno, his head swimming, presses his lips full against Cloud’s neck. Lets them linger, lets his fingers squeeze again as he presses closer in, sliding around to rest at the upper curve of Cloud’s ass, toying with the rim of his pants. 

It’s easier to not meet Cloud’s eyes. He knows if he does, he isn’t gonna get it all out, and he feels like he has to. Like it’s more important now than it ever has been. 

“And now?” Cloud asks, his voice wavering enough to let Reno know that this is  _ it _ . Literal years in the making. The anticipation is so thick it’s making his blood absolutely pulse under his skin. He grazes his teeth along Cloud’s neck, lets his lips catch on the blond’s ear, before nosing at his hairline, his mouth right by Cloud’s ear. 

“I still think you’re stunning,” he admits, pressing a kiss to the blonde’s ear and swallowing down the nausea that’s briefly swelled at his impending words. “But now… I kinda wanna keep you forever.”

Cloud stiffens noticeably, and Reno internally begins the immediate process for panic, but Cloud’s grip tightens and pulls him closer, not pushes him away, as an exhale of breath bursts from Cloud’s mouth and sends heat across Reno’s throat. 

“Wow,” Cloud manages shakily, and Reno still can’t meet his eyes. Still doesn’t know exactly how he’s being received. Still doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, until Cloud is turning his head and clutching the back of Reno’s to ensure he’s turning to meet him halfway. As if there was absolutely anything Reno would rather be doing. 

Reno’s pictured the first time they would kiss about a thousand different ways in his head, from the varying scenarios, to varying intensities, methods, you name it. He’d mostly envisioned hot, messy, all teeth and tongue and wandering hands that can’t be contained, but he’s been an idiot because he’s quickly realising that this reality is infinitely better. 

Cloud’s got one hand in a death grip on his shirt, pressing them bodily together as he slowly and methodically works Reno’s lips apart with his own, a tongue gently lapping at the lower swell of his mouth as he cradles the redhead’s head. When Reno realises that the blond is simply  _ tasting _ , just  _ savouring  _ it, something hot and warm and way more comforting than he wants to spend more time than necessary analysing unfurls in his stomach. Cloud grazes his teeth along Reno’s lip, nips just enough to punch a shock of a moan from Reno’s lungs, before he’s gentling his ministrations once more. Reno’s own hands have found themselves under the hem of Cloud’s shirt, fingertips resting gently against heated skin, almost skittish in the slow creep of movement across Cloud’s lower back because Reno’s worried that if he moves too quickly, Cloud’s gonna realise what a mistake he’s making and hightail it out of there. 

Cloud sighs into Reno’s mouth and pulls back a little, resting his head against the redhead’s forehead to stop Reno from chasing down his lips, despite the ex-Turk’s best efforts. 

“Okay… You’re thinking really  _ really _ loudly,” Cloud murmurs, and Reno - dumbly - briefly wonders if one of the side effects of mass mako exposure is telepathy, before Cloud snorts. “I don’t mean  _ literally _ , idiot.” It’s said with enough affection that Reno doesn’t take it ( _ too _ much) to heart. “I’m just good at reading people. At reading you.”

“Is that so?” Reno raises a brow and presses his nose in, lets his lips brush Cloud’s cheek. “What’re you readin now then, bookworm?”

“Tension, mostly. Not even the good kind,” Cloud offers quietly, dropping his hand from Reno’s head in favour of encircling his waist with both hands. “You think I’m gonna change my mind or that this is a one off or that you’re taking advantage. Any number of those.”

Reno huffs out a breath, part amusement, part self degradation and makes to pull back from Cloud’s grip, but the blond’s not letting him. 

Cloud watches him intently, Reno can feel the blond’s gaze on him even if the redhead can’t quite meet his gaze, and Cloud’s grip tightens, pulling Reno even tighter against him. 

“Look at me,” Cloud just about  _ commands _ , and if this were any other situation, Reno would’ve lost about all of his blood straight to his cock with it. As it stands, he begrudgingly meets Cloud’s gaze and Reno feels it like a punch in the guts when he finds Cloud frowning. 

“I’m not going  _ anywhere _ ,” Cloud urges, and Reno swallows thickly. “The stars could have aligned about a million times before now, but they haven’t. Now they have. You dumbass, you don’t think I’ve been waiting for you this whole damn time to just let you go the second I get to have you? You’re dense.”

Reno opens his mouth to bite back against it, but all that seems to achieve is giving Cloud an easy path for his own to latch onto with a whole new determination. 

_ Oh _ . Okay,  _ this _ is what Reno thought kissing Cloud was going to be like. 

Cloud uses his grip on Reno’s waist to turn him and press him against the wall, before sliding his hands beneath the redhead’s untucked shirt and clutching onto him with bruising intensity. Reno feels what is absolutely Cloud’s enjoyment of the situation pressing hard and hot against his thigh and he stutters out a groan into Cloud’s relentless mouth before Cloud is pulling Reno’s lower lip into his mouth and sucking hard, teeth sinking hard enough for a burst of copper tinged heat to explode across Reno’s tongue. 

His brain briefly registers ‘ _ blood… he drew  _ **_blood_ ** _ ’ _ , before Cloud is pulling back enough to latch onto the skin beneath Reno’s ear, tongue lathing as he sucks and bites at the  _ one _ spot Reno just about melts at. Reno doesn’t know  _ how _ Cloud knows that, doesn’t have the mind to care, and his head is foggy enough that it barely registers how very hard his head falls back into the wall behind him. Cloud does, however, if the smirk Reno feels against his skin is anything to go by. 

“I could mark you up so pretty,” Cloud murmurs, and despite the heat to the words and how clearly Cloud is enjoying this, there’s still amusement in the tone. Reno smirks in return.

“A lot of talk for a little action,” He rasps, as Cloud lifts enough to drag his tongue along the stretch of Reno’s neck, peppering open mouthed kisses along the way. “You military types are all the sa-Ahhh  _ fuck _ …”

Cloud’s teeth sink into Reno’s shoulder, lips sealing around the spot as Reno’s knees threaten to buckle. He clutches at Cloud’s hair and moans as the blond sucks and sucks  _ hard.  _ Reno is  _ dizzy _ with the pleasure and this ain’t even the main course. Not even the  _ entree.  _ Cloud might just kill him and Reno finds that he’s surprisingly okay with this. 

Cloud grabs a handful of the redhead’s ass then, pressing his own thigh against Reno’s cock as he rolls his hips in a single slow grind. Reno moans for just about the whole town to hear because he has  _ never _ been a quiet lover and he wasn’t about to start now, as he winds desperate fingers into Cloud’s hair and tugs. Cloud  _ shivers _ and Reno just about comes in his pants then and there as an extended “Oh fuck,  _ Reno _ …” tumbles from Cloud’s lips, his hips bucking again. 

And just as things are getting good -  _ really  _ getting good - Cloud jerks back with wide eyes and a gaping mouth as he turns away from Reno with flushed cheeks and disastrous hair, just as the rear entrance bar door swings closed behind one amused looking Vincent Valentine. 

“Apologies. There’s cake to wrap up festivities,” the gunman offers by way of explanation. “And nobody else was willing to check if you were still in the vicinity.”

“I have never hated anybody more than I do right now, Valentine,” Reno grinds out, not so subtly adjusting himself in his pants as the gunman’s smirk grows wider than Reno’s ever seen it. “Just putting that out there, yo.”

“I’ll consider it an honour,” Vincent muses, turning his gaze back to Cloud. “The children have pulled themselves out of bed. Tifa has begrudgingly allowed it on the condition they return once cake has been served. They are getting increasingly restless and we fear rebellion.”

Reno props himself upright, as Cloud also adjusts himself in his pants and pointedly refuses to meet Vincent’s gaze as he offers response with an embarrassed smile. 

“We’ll just- just be a minute. Thanks.”

Vincent doesn’t say another word, merely nods, continues smirking, and returns inside. Reno runs a hand through his hair and lets out a long breath, staring up at the heavens and still wondering why the fuck this is his life. 

Cloud steps back into his space and presses a soft, slow kiss against his mouth, before resting their foreheads together once again. 

“I know,” he murmurs, the disappointment clear in his tone and Reno presses a kiss back into him, letting out a frustrated groan and getting Cloud to laugh again. 

“Same shit every time,” Reno grouches and Cloud shakes his head. 

“Not quite…”

“Oh?” Reno queries, distracted, as he lets himself greedily get his hands on Cloud’s waist once again. 

“Yeah. This time I’ve booked a room to myself for the whole night after the party, and I was never planning on going home alone,” he smirks. “And definitely not without you.”

Reno thinks of the possibilities that could hold and combined with the intent burning through Cloud’s gaze, his cheeks flush of their own accord. 

“Come in for cake?” Cloud asks, fingers tangling with the redhead’s and starting to tug him towards the door before he could answer one way or the other. Reno grins as he realises that this was definitely happening, and lifts his shoulder in a shrug. They could easily duck in, do the speeches and cake and whatever and sneak out not long after. As much as he hates admitting it, now that the world’s stopped ending and he’s playing the role of good guy, Reno feels himself starting to get tired by around 10 and he was ready for a solid 8 hours. 

After ridiculous amounts of sex, that is. 

“I could eat,” Reno offers in way of response and Cloud rolls his eyes, still smiling as he tugs open the door. 

Any hope of a quiet entrance shatters as most of the blond’s friends begin their catcalling and cheers from around the bar, as Cloud flushes a near unhealthy shade of red and Reno flips the bird. 

“Yeah alright, would have happened a lot sooner if you dicks weren’t so hellbent on fucking up my day,” Reno calls out, and there’s a burst of collective laughter from the group as he and Cloud make their way to the bar, where Tifa is standing beside a cake that’s almost obscenely large, with enough candles and sparklers on it to light up Midgar. She’s smiling in a softer, more supportive manner than the others, so Reno makes a point of pulling her into a hug and kissing her temple whilst Barret cracks a highly inappropriate joke and jostles Cloud around a little. 

“I will literally pay you to keep everyone the fuck away from our room tonight,” Reno murmurs and she laughs, smacking him on the chest without malice. 

“You won’t need to. Cloud booked a room in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think he wanted to be disturbed any more than you do,” she smiled and then raises her eyebrows as her gaze latches onto Reno’s shoulder. “Oh, Reno…. You might wanna button up before Reeve-...” 

A camera flash damn near blinds Reno then, before Reeve, self appointed photographer for the night, smiles politely and holds up his now immortalised proof of the frankly impressive hickey Cloud has left on Reno’s skin.

“That’s going in the album,” Reeve claps a hand on Reno’s shoulder. “You just carry on with your night, hey?”

If Reno didn’t have to resort to his old ways, he’d prefer not to, but Reeve really liked pushing his fucken luck. 

He was about half a second from voicing this, before Cloud’s hand found his own once again and gave a reassuring squeeze, casting a look from those baby blues over his shoulder with a shy little smile and rendering Reno suddenly and completely at peace with the world. Reno had been wanting this - hoping for this - for as long as he could dare to remember. As he watches Cloud blow out his candles and start carving up slices of cake, the most content the redhead had seen him for years, he figures maybe it wouldn’t kill him to wait just that little bit longer. 

When he notices that Cloud keeps throwing glances his way, however, he realises that maybe he doesn’t have to wait for this at all; it’s already his. 


End file.
